Nigeria is the largest producer of plantain in West Africa, with an annual production of about 2.4 million metric tons, according to a recent report from the Forum For Agricultural Research in Africa ( FARA). Analysis. By Oluwasoyo Folarin Nigeria is the largest producer of plantain in West Africa, with an annual production of about 2.4 million metric tons, according to a recent report from the Forum For Agricultural Research in Africa ( FARA), the technical arm of the African Union Commission (AUC) on matters concerning agricultural science, technology and innovation. Plantain is healthy Plantain consumption helps to address food security and plantain flour is also seen as healthy with nutritious values, according to the study. Plantain has diverse use in medicine, industries and households. These uses has made it demand upsurge in the last decade and positioned the food crop as a viable product for export. One of the major derivative of plantain is plantain flour which is used in the production of baking pastries, waffles, pancakes, breads, soups & more. The constraints There are numerous opportunities to be harness by investors along the crop value chain. The plantain industry should be developed with favorable policies and strong support from the Nigeria government to ease difficulty of business, and integrating strategic investment in plantain, specified the researchers. There are three major constraints with plantain production. Farmers have to deal with the changing climate( off-season, on- season), the menace of pest and disease linked to climate change and the access to finance to determine the price of their plantains. The value chain of Plantain Adeolu Babatunde Ayanwale, Fatunbi Oluwole Abiodun and Ojo Mathew Pau, three researchers from FARA analyzed the various activities of the key actors in the plantain value chain across the southwest region, one of the major centers of plantain production in Nigeria. The study shows that about 49% of farming households are producing plantain as their main crop. 82% of the farmers belong to farmers association, while about 64% also belong to cooperative societies. 90% of the farmers needs 180,000 Naira ( 432 euros) to fill the financing gap. However, membership of cooperative society can have access easily to credit, noted the researchers. The analysis collected data from 300 producers from six states: Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo. The study has selecting 15 marketers, processors and consumers per state to give a total of 45 respondents for marketers, processors and consumers respectively. According to the researchers, plantain production is mainly dominated by males, monogamously married with an average age of 49 years old and a primary school education. Plantain production is becoming...

The 2017 UN Climate Change Conference opened on Monday, with the aim of launching nations towards the next level of ambition needed to tackle global warming and put the world on a safer and more prosperous development path, recalled the UNFCCC Secretariat at the opening ceremony. Explanations. By Houmi AHAMED-MIKIDACHE in Bonn Two years after the adoption of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, this conference held in Bonn and presided by Fiji, the first small island developing state to have this role. “The human suffering caused by intensifying hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, floods and threats to food security caused by climate change means there is no time to waste,” said Mr Frank Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji and president of COP 23. Critical According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2017 will be one of the three hottest years on records with many high-impact events including catastrophic hurricanes and floods, debilating heatwaves and drought. “The past three years have all been in the top three years in terms of temperature records. This is part of a long term warming trend,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. And he added: “We have witnessed extraordinary weather, including temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius in Asia, record-breaking hurricanes in rapid succession in the Caribbean and Atlantic reaching as far as Ireland, devastating monsoon flooding affecting many millions of people and a relentless drought in East Africa. One of the consequences of climate change is food insecurity in developing countries especially. A review of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that, in developing countries, agriculture (crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and forestry) accounted for 26% of all the damage and loss associated with medium to large-scale storms, floods and drought. For Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, it is urgent to act. “The thermometer of risk is rising; the pulse of the planet is racing; people are hurting; the window of opportunity is closing and we must go Further and Faster Together to lift ambition and action to the next defining level, “she said. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the global health impacts of heatwaves depend not only on the overall warming trend, but on how heatwaves are distributed across where people live. Recent research shows that the overall risk of heat-related illness or death has climbed steadily since 1980, with around 30% of the world’s population now living in climatic conditions that deliver prolonged extreme heatwaves. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of vulnerable people exposed to heatwave events has increased by approximately 125 million. The negotiations According to UNFCCC secretariat, COP23 negotiators are keen to move forward on other...

The United States and Togo to co-host AGOA on August By Houmi Ahamed-Mikidache The United States of America and Togo will co-host the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum in Lome, Togo from Aug. 8-10. Senior government officials from the US and 38 Sub-Saharan African countries will discuss how to boost economic cooperation and trade between the US and Africa.“Patnering for prosperity through Trade” will be the theme of this event. According to a press release, the 2017 Forum will explore how countries can continue to maximize the benefits of AGOA in a rapidly changing economic landscape, and highlight the important role played by women, civil society, and the private sector in promoting trade, expanding inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and generating prosperity. Since 2000, the US government works on AGOA with sub-Saharan Africa. Following the AGOA law, a special Forum has to be convened each year to analyze issues related to the implementation of the law and issues of economic cooperation and trade. In the past few years AGOA forum was organized in Mauritius, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Gabon. This year, the forum will be led by U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer and include senior officials from the U.S. Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, as well as the National Security Council, Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Export-Import Bank, the Small Business Administration, and the United States African Development Fund. Members of Congress from both parties will also attend the Forum. ...

Feed the world sustainably: challenging Welcome words by Nnimmo Bassey, Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) at Media Training-Promoting Biosafety in Nigeria held in Benin City , Nigeria, on Friday, 24th March 2017 Promoting genetically modified organisms: dangerous The need to interrogate our biosafety has become very pertinent because of the many myths around modern agricultural biotechnology. These myths are being peddled regularly by the industry promoting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and their team players in public offices. A major plank on which biosafety, and perhaps biosecurity, rests is the precautionary principle[1]. This principle, or approach, is a safeguard against the permission or introduction of products or elements into the environment where there is no scientific consensus that such an introduction would be safe or would not have an adverse impact. In other words, the precautionary principle helps to disallow the use of citizens as guinea pigs in experimental release of products that could harm them. The argument that there is a risk in everything is hollow and an acceptance of that as an excuse to expose citizens to harm is inhuman. Information of biosafety: a moral duty In this engagement on biosafety we hope to share information on the issues of biosafety and GMOs in Nigeria and Africa. The aim is that media practitioners would be able to sift the facts from the myths, and by so doing help the public to require a sense of responsibility from our biosafety regulators, research institutions, political forces and commercial interests behind the risky genetic engineering approach to food production.The key myths by which citizens are sold the idea of GMOs as being desirable include that they provide the most assured way of feeding the burgeoning population of hungry mouths in the world. The planks on which this highly seductive myth has been erected are quite flimsy. Why GMO is saleable ? Research has shown that GMOs do not necessarily yield higher than normal crops, making the talk of producing more food by using GMOs simply fatuous. Secondly, over one third of food currently produced in the world today simply gets wasted,[2] while most of the GMOs currently grown in the world end up as animal feed.[3]Another argument used to sell GMOs is that they require the use of less chemical in terms of pesticides and herbicides because the crops can be engineered to withstand herbicides or to act as pesticides themselves. A possible source for cancer The emergence of what have been termed super weeds and superbugs have dented that claim as farmers have had to sometimes apply stronger doses of herbicides and pesticides on farms where such...